Business Park

Authorities evacuated about 700 people from a south Oxnard industrial center and nearby mobile home park Wednesday after two military-issue metal drums marked "high explosives" were found in a vacant lot. After a lengthy investigation, a bomb squad determined the barrels were empty--but not before many business owners in the Channel Islands Business Park told employees to take the afternoon off.

The future of a proposed multiuse development in the Santa Clarita Valley could rest partly on its relationship with some short-legged, bug-eyed amphibians. Toads, to be precise. Construction of Sterling Gateway, a 75-acre business park, won't be able to get underway until the developers fulfill at least one environmental requirement: Dedicate land where Western spadefoot toads can breed. Sterling's proposed business park in Valencia's Hasley Canyon just north of California 126 will complement the nearby construction of some 250 single-family homes the company also is planning.

The future of a proposed multiuse development in the Santa Clarita Valley could rest partly on its relationship with some short-legged, bug-eyed amphibians. Toads, to be precise. Construction of Sterling Gateway, a 75-acre business park, won't be able to get underway until the developers fulfill at least one environmental requirement: Dedicate land where Western spadefoot toads can breed. Sterling's proposed business park in Valencia's Hasley Canyon just north of California 126 will complement the nearby construction of some 250 single-family homes the company also is planning.

Jeff Wilcox lopes across the nearly empty parking lot, aiming for a large brick building. Inside, he excitedly shows off the cavernous space, once used to make wire, vacant now for a decade. He imagines it running 24/7, filled with glowing lights, gurgling irrigation systems, whirling ventilators and workers coaxing thousands of pungent marijuana plants to bud. And that's just one part of his proposal. Wilcox, a retired builder, owns a campus of aging, idled industrial plants. On a wall in an unused conference room, a sketch of the property shows how he could fill most of the 172,000 square feet with growers raising high-end pot and entrepreneurs turning out brownies, drinks, tinctures and other products.

The newly completed $8.5-million Indiana Business Park at Indiana Avenue and Harrison Street, Riverside, a 152,000-square-foot project of Mat West Co. of Los Angeles, is 20% leased.

Landmark Business Park, a master-planned, $10-million office and research and development complex in Fountain Valley, has topped out and is set for completion in August. The developer is Landmark Asset Development Group, Newport Beach; the builder is Davcon Inc., Tustin.

A $9-million business park is planned following purchase of 11.1 acres at Palm and Moon Stone streets, Brea, by Investment Building Group of Los Angeles, in partnership with New England Mutual Life Insurance Co. of Boston. Construction is scheduled to begin in July for six light-industrial buildings, ranging in size from 11,600 to 40,000 square feet and covering 7.6 acres of property. An existing building on the site is leased to Ultra Limousine Co.

Speculative construction was a common real estate strategy during the go-go 1980s. In recent years, however, developing a major project without advance commitments from tenants or buyers has virtually disappeared due to the twin pressures of tight money and the recession. But "spec" construction has returned to Ventura County. Last week, The Sammis Co.

Commerce Business Park office and industrial complex in Commerce has been acquired by two buyers for an estimated total of $136 million. San Francisco-based AMB Property Corp., a large industrial-oriented real estate investment trust, bought 1.38 million square feet of industrial space, 190,000 square feet of "service center" buildings and 56,000 square feet of office and support retail facilities for an estimated $100 million.

These are not the best of times to be stuck on the wrong side of the DMZ. Yet hundreds of South Koreans still commute north of the border to an industrial park that once symbolized brotherly love between an estranged people and is now a pawn in a dangerous quarrel over the March 26 sinking of a South Korean patrol ship. "This is like children struggling to read the mind of their parents who are about to divorce," said Lee Im-dong, director of the corporate council for the Kaesong industrial park, who on a recent afternoon was fielding phone calls from nervous factory owners and employees.

In an effort to tap one of the high desert's most abundant resources, Palmdale is allowing large shopping centers and business parks to install small wind turbines in their parking lots to save on electricity costs. Civic leaders in the Antelope Valley have taken a variety of steps in recent years to harness and adapt to the region's vast supplies of sun and wind. In Lancaster, hundreds of acres of desert landscape will be used for a huge bed of solar-thermal panels. Both Palmdale and Lancaster have taken steps to ban new lawns to help conserve water.

Two separate developers want to build nearly 1,300 homes and an adjoining business park on farmland in an unincorporated Ventura County area southeast of Oxnard. But environmentalists are concerned that the proposed project would not only eliminate agricultural land but also threaten nearly two decades of restoration efforts at the neighboring Ormond Beach wetlands, which provide habitat for a variety of birds, including threatened and endangered species.

In a move designed to jump start western Riverside County's economy, Southern California Edison on Tuesday announced plans to invest more than $23 million to help transform a portion of the former March Air Force Base into a business park and air cargo hub. The money will upgrade the old base's electrical infrastructure over a decade, allowing for redevelopment and the creation of an estimated 15,000 jobs over 10 to 15 years in the commuter-choked region.

The Mission Viejo City Council is considering allowing affordable housing units in business parks to comply with a state mandate to add 154 units to the city's housing stock. The proposal would allow developers to build relatively low-cost housing in areas zoned for commercial use without having to seek rezoning. Developers also may be asked to add affordable units in their residential mix to meet state requirements.

Construction is set to begin today on a long-delayed $1-billion business park adjacent to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County. Developer Lennar Partners, a unit of LNR Property Corp., will start by building 5 million square feet of warehouse and light industrial space on 250 acres.

Re "Native Trout to Get Fighting Chance in Southland Creek," Sept. 3: Having helped pull hundreds of bullheads and other nonnative fish out of the deep pools of upper San Mateo Creek, I can attest to the importance of the work that Trout Unlimited and others are doing to protect one of our region's last free-flowing coastal streams and its steelhead trout. Unfortunately, at the same time that private citizens are taking responsibility for restoring this creek, Orange County bureaucrats are moving forward to approve two massive construction projects that threaten the creek.

After reaching a settlement, community and environmental activists have agreed to drop their lawsuit to block part of the former March Air Reserve Base from being transformed into a mammoth business park. Along with reducing warehouse space and curtailing truck diesel fumes, the base's Joint Powers Authority agreed to build a regional park and other improvements.